


Love in the Time of Slipspace Wormhole Travels

by manic_intent



Series: The Eternity Edda [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, And neither can Thor, Avengers Movie plotline, Continuing shenanigans, M/M, That AU where Tony is Asgardian, Time Jump, Tony can't leave well alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 21:14:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1526003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Did you tell Fury that I wasn't a people person?" Stark complains.</p><p>"The Director is intimately aware of all of your shortcomings, Agent Stark." Agent Pepper Potts doesn't slow down in her stride in the least, her heels clicking efficiently as she leads Stark firmly down the temperature controlled plasteel bowels of the SHIELD R&R division. </p><p>"The way you say that is <i>so</i> wrong," Stark mutters, but he trudges along, hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark breeches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love in the Time of Slipspace Wormhole Travels

**Author's Note:**

> Because everyone asked for a continuation that wraps up this AU... ^^;;

I.

"Did you tell Fury that I wasn't a people person?" Stark complains.

"The Director is intimately aware of all of your shortcomings, Agent Stark." Agent Pepper Potts doesn't slow down in her stride in the least, her heels clicking efficiently as she leads Stark firmly down the temperature controlled plasteel bowels of the SHIELD R&R division. 

"The way you say that is _so_ wrong," Stark mutters, but he trudges along, hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark breeches. 

It's been two years, and Midgardian clothes remain very much a mystery to him: still, he never did like attracting attention whenever he ventured out of the Triskelion. He had managed to cobble together a mostly acceptable facsimile of the the kastali interweave that he was used to out of local materials, which had since replaced the bulk of SHIELD uniform kevlar, but Director Fury had insisted on a dull matte black for a colour, and for the clothes to sort of fit existing Midgardian styles, both of which orders somewhat puzzled Stark. Clothes were for _colours_. 

At least Midgardian shirts made some sense. Comfortable, short-sleeved and often humourous, Stark rather liked them, useless as they were as body protection. He was wearing one now rather than a kastali vest: a white shirt with the words 'Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion' in orange blackletter script across the front. Agent Potts had not been very amused. 

"Here we are." Pepper clicked to an efficient stop before a blast door. "Be nice."

"You're worried about _him_? Didn't he smash through an entire R &R block before the Director caught up?" Stark asked sourly, though he pressed his palm to the sensor plate beside the door, waiting as it scanned him. 

"The Director is confident in your sense of self-preservation, Agent Stark."

"Gods, this is taking forever. Are we still using Midgardian security measures for ID purposes? Wasn't I going to change that?"

"That was 'in the works', as you put it, two months ago, Agent Stark," Pepper notes, without even consulting her planner. 

"Hells, what did I end up doing instead?"

"Grounding shields which didn't work. And an improved coffee machine which worked for about five minutes and twenty seconds before exploding." Agent Potts has a magical ability to look and sound completely neutral while still inserting reproach into her words, and Stark's cringing a little as he sidles through the opening door. 

Inside the room is an odd copy of a Midgardian apartment, complete with a fake sunny view and a fake radio. Its occupant is a tall Midgardian, blonde, curiously turning the radio over in his big hands: he glances up sharply as they walk in, and for a moment Stark has to suck in a slow breath, even if the Midgardian is not- he's not- 

The Midgardian glances inquiringly from Agent Potts to Stark then back. "Yes?" he asks, and his tone is edged. 

"Captain Rogers, meet Agent Stark," Pepper introduces him briskly, then she steps just as briskly out of the room and closes the blast door.

Stark lets out a deep sigh, and looks around the tiny room, just as Rogers unfreezes from his surprise and gestures him into a chair. "So, what are you? A shrink?" Rogers asks, as Stark gingerly settles into the uncomfortably stiff wooden chair by the fake window.

"A what?" Stark repeats, blinking. It's been a while, but Allspeak still has problems with Midgardian slang now and then.

"A psychologist?"

"No!" Stark barks out a laugh. "No. I'm a... eh, your people call me an engineer. I'm an engineer." 

Rogers looks openly puzzled now. "Why send me an engineer?"

"Who knows? Why send me to a soldier?" Stark counters, trying to slouch and failing. "I suppose Fury thought that we might have something in common. You're a man out of time. I'm not a man at all." 

"Really?" Rogers' eyes open wide. "You're... er... what?"

Stark stares at Rogers for one long, stunned silence, then he ends up laughing so hard that Rogers, bright red, fetches him water from the fully functional kitchenette and keeps apologizing until Stark has no more breath to keep laughing in.

"Let's try this again," Stark gasps, when he's downed the water. "Outside. With hot dogs. That's one of the only things worth staying on this planet for."

Rogers is still beet red, stuttering responses and half-apologies, but he calms down when they unwrap their hotdogs in a park, fifteen minutes later, watching joggers bumble past and the mad morass of New York traffic crawl its way across the horizon.

"So you're an alien," Rogers repeats again, for the sixth time. "Wow. So there really is life out there."

"I'm an American now. Have a passport and everything." Stark flashes Rogers a grin. "It was a massive culture shock for me too, if in reverse. But it gets better. You get used to it. Fact is, it'll be easier for you. You've got more to look forward to. All I had to look to was everything that I was going to miss."

"Must be hard," Rogers says soberly. "Being torn away-"

"Just like you," Stark cuts in, with a quick grin. "I think I refused to leave the SHIELD HQ for half a _year_ , so you've already been doing better than me. Then they stuck me with Agent Potts over there - yeah, behind the ice-cream van, she thinks she's _so_ good at stealth - and I suppose I've been forced to adjust ever since."

Rogers looks sharply over at the van, then he laughs ruefully. "Thing is, Mister... err... Agent Stark... I don't know who to trust. It's... all done gone crazy. I feel like I'm lost with nowhere to do. How did you do it?" 

"Me?" Stark looked Rogers firmly in the eye. "I suppose I took a leap of faith. Still am. You're a soldier, you're good at trusting your gut instincts. Take a few months off. Hell, take half a year off, like me. Get used to the new world. Then think about what you want to do. I'll be around, if you want to talk." 

"Thanks. I guess I feel better now."

"All in a day's work," Stark begins to say, then he freezes briefly as he catches a gleam of something bright up in the sky - but it's only a plane, soaring far overhead. He finds Rogers watching him curiously when he looks back over, and forces a smile. "So. You have to be someone very important to your people. I don't get trundled out of the depths of R&R against my will very often."

"Didn't they give you my file or something?"

Stark shrugs. "Sure. War hero, aye?" 

"I keep forgetting..." Rogers trails off with a laugh. "Alien, yeah, I getcha. You have no idea how great it is to talk to someone who has no idea who you are and doesn't care."

"Captain," Stark notes dryly, " _You_ have no idea how much _I_ understand what that's like."

II.

Steve Rogers turns out to be a perfectly adequate new companion, awkward as it is from the start. They have a lot in common, after all: neither of them really belong in the current Midgardian world. He takes Steve up to the Hubble telescope once, to show him Yggdrasil; another time, Steve drags him out to watch some utterly confusing Midgardian game called 'baseball', muttering darkly all the time about 'Mets' and 'Dodgers' and 'Giants'.

Stark introduces Steve to his other three occasional minders: Agents Romanoff, Barton and Coulson, and perhaps unsurprisingly enough, they all get along. Steve is a natural warrior, with the command presence and charisma to boot: Thor would probably have liked him. 

Of late, that's a somewhat more comfortable thought to entertain. His accidental exile has been fairly good to him so far.

And then he finds out that the very impressive Director Fury is sitting on some equally impressive secrets, after all, what with Loki breaking in to a sub-level of R&R that Stark never knew existed, leashing a set of agents - including Clint - and making off with the Tesseract. 

"You _should_ have put me on that project," Stark snarls at Fury, when they meet in an emergency session, Steve tense at the round table and Natasha watchful and pale and silent. "I could have told you what the Tesseract was! How _dangerous_ it was!"

"We didn't trust you yet," Fury shoots back, "And to be honest, we don't fucking fully trust you still. It ain't personal, Stark. But you ain't human, and your civilization's well beyond ours. I'm looking out for my own _species_."

"How _could_ you..." Stark trails off, incredulous. "I've helped you wholeheartedly all this while. I've-"

"You've categorically refused to make any weapons, or even any defensive mechanisms that could be remotely weaponised," Fury growls. "I've accepted your goddamned reasons and allowed you to do what you like. That doesn't mean that I'm gonna sit back on my fucking ass and let the arms race run on!" 

"All right, you two," Steve cuts in firmly. "Director, it's pretty obvious that Stark took a heck of a big leap of faith trusting you when he was alone out here. You should'a extended a bit of courtesy there, maybe consulted him on the Tesseract from the start. Stark, the whole business of a First Contact situation's hard enough to swallow, let alone run with, and I don't know if you've seen, but pretty much most of our cultural imaginings about First Contact situations tend to end real badly. So let's move on, all right?"

"How are _you_ aware of current cultural imaginings?" Stark mutters, though he reluctantly sits back down. "Sorry, Nick. I'm just worried about Clint and the others. I know that tech that Loki was using to leash them to his staff. It's not... it's not without its side effects. It's been known to cause memory loss and worse."

Natasha stiffens up even more, but says nothing, even as Fury lets out an explosive sigh. "Yeah. All right. I know it's empty words saying it now, but you _were_ scheduled to consult on the Tesseract pretty soon - Selvig was just going to do a couple of tests on his 'breakthrough' first. We just wanted to see how far our 'primitive' Midgardian tech could go without your help first, all right? We've got our pride. Some fucking tests those turned out to be." 

"So what now?" Steve asks. "If there're bad side effects, our priority's going to have to be retrieving Clint and the others."

"That's what you'll be doing, Captain," Fury agrees gruffly. "Coulson has some leads on where they might be. Stark here is going to review Selvig's research, see what went wildly wrong, what we can do to fix things and such, try to figure out what he's up to. Romanoff, you're going to Kolkata to retrieve the package."

Natasha colours slightly, but she nods. "Understood." She gets up from the table, circling around to leave in long strides; Steve rises as well, hesitating when Fury says nothing, then he nods to them both and follows her. 

"So," Fury notes, when they're alone.

"So," Stark echoes dryly. "Am I the only one who gets the adult version of the pep talk?"

"Loki came in from a wormhole," Fury points out. "You can't tell me that you haven't thought about going home."

Stark scowls. "I don't abandon my friends. I wasn't exaggerating about the side effects."

"If Loki could come through," Fury continues, with arch patience, "So could others. Look," he adds, when Stark says nothing, "I'm thinking that this isn't a good sign. Judging from what you've told me about the situation that got you stranded here, as well as what Jane Foster and Selvig have said, if Loki's still alive, maybe your homeworld's gone to hell."

"Or maybe he's escaping it. If Loki has risen to rule, then he wouldn't need to enslave a group of Midgardians to his will. He'll have the Royal Guard."

"Maybe. Let's hope that's the case. I don't want to have to deal with some sort of Asgardian incursion." 

"Nick," Stark says slowly, "If Loki's... taken over, in Asgard, then he'll have had to do it over the bodies of everyone I've ever held dear. Do you think that I'll defect?"

"I don't know, Stark. I can guess what a human would think. But you're no human." Fury exhales again, in a sharp, harsh gust. "Suppose it's my turn to take a leap of fucking faith. Agent Potts will take you down to R&R. See if you can make some sense of the mess down there. And Stark?" he adds, when Stark rises to go, "If there really is an incursion? I hope you damned well rethink your moratorium on making weapons."

III.

"Agent Stark? You've got a visitor," Pepper says, and there's something flat about her voice that he's never heard before, pinging a dim warning bell in the back of his mind.

"Tell whoever it is to wait for a bit," Stark retorts, still absorbed in disassembling Selvig's prototype, elbows deep in haphazard wiring and frustrated. "Muspell's hairy balls, how did this Gods-damned disaster actually _work_ without frying the entire floor? And who thought that it would've been a good idea to move it all into this keel-heavy flying death boat?"

"Agent _Stark_ ," Pepper snaps, and Stark jerks, almost braining himself on the circuit board as he turns to glower at her - and freezes. 

Standing beside Pepper, flushed and wide-eyed, is _Thor_. 

Thor. 

Stark doesn't know what's going across his face, but Pepper says, just as flatly, "If you're busy right now I can escort him back to the war room," and that's when he realizes belatedly that neat, prim, _polite_ Agent Potts is actually bristling with belligerence. _Protective_ belligerence. She'll go toe to toe with Thor without hesitation if Stark wants Thor to go and Thor refuses, and that's- that's humbling, to say the least. 

"That's all right, Pepper, thanks," he says softly, and extricates himself gingerly from the machine, awkwardly wiping his greasy hands down on a rag. "I'll take it from here."

"I'll be right outside if you need me," Pepper notes fiercely, and scowls at Thor before she turns and strides away, the lab techs scurrying in her wake, leaving Stark and Thor in the test chamber alone.

"Did you win?" Stark begins by asking, and he's surprised that his tone is even steady.

"Aye, I did. Loki was exiled. But I had to break the Bifrost. Travel is yet unstable. I would not have chanced it had I... had the situation not been so dire." Thor takes a step over, then he hesitates, and his fingers curl lightly. "It is... good to see that you are well, _sváss_."

"Oh? Am I still that to you?"

Something freezes in Thor's face, and Gods, it aches more than Stark thought that it would. "Two years is not very much time, when I have loved you for twenty." 

"Jane Foster," Stark bites out, because the knowledge of Jane Foster and all that she had obviously not said during her SHIELD interviews had weighed on his soul all this time, and in a way, he's viciously pleased at the way Thor sucks in a sharp, wounded breath. "You are Crown Prince and your father's heir. Part of your royal duties involve continuing the line. Your mother's been pushing Sif on you for a while, but I'm sure that she'll accept a Midgardian-"

First he smells ozone, and then Thor is right up against him, gripping his arms; the young princeling he has known has been forcibly matured - although Stark can see Thor's famous temper brimming just under the surface, it's clearly controlled. "I thought that I was banished forever," Thor says carefully, evenly. "I thought that my father was dead; I thought that our last, angry words had parted us forever - I was grieving, my heart heavy, and Jane offered me a little comfort that went no further than a kiss. How was I to know that you had followed me?"

"She's a fair woman with a good heart," Stark schools his face. "But you probably should go with Sif."

"If there had been another way," Thor continues roughly, "If I could have stopped Loki without breaking the Bifrost - he was using it to destroy Jotunheim, he would have-"

"This is not about the Bifrost, Thor," Stark says quietly, evenly, "This is about me making the mistake of thinking that you were old enough to understand love. I wanted to go home desperately during the first year of being stuck here; I probably would've forgiven you anything if I could just return to Asgard. Now, I'm not so sure."

"Stark."

"You should head back up," Stark continues, his tone growing clipped. "I'm working on cleaning up your brother's mess." 

Thor stares at him, fierce and tense with unhappiness, then he leans over abruptly, pressing his forehead briefly against Stark's with a low sound broken with a harsh breath, and then he turns to stride away, every angry step like a closing page in an old chapter of Stark's life. 

He's elbows deep in wiring again when Pepper edges carefully around into his field of vision. "All right there?" she asks softly. "I didn't want to let him down, but the Director said it was either that or have him blast his way down with that hammer of his."

"Yeah. I'm fine," Stark says quietly. "And I think that I'm beginning to understand what Loki wants to do." 

"We've got Loki contained."

"We _do_? Already?" Stark blinks. "Well then, why the hells didn't anyone just _say_ so?"

"Because," Pepper arches an eyebrow, "The Director's always doubly cautious whenever something goes well."

"I'll like to see him." 

"Director Fury said-"

" _Now_ , Pepper."

She's reproachfully silent all the way up, and it takes over an hour to get the clearance to walk through onto a walkway around a starglass cage, suspended over a dizzying drop. Loki's pacing in the centre of it, hands folded behind his back, and he smiles lazily when Stark walks around and comes to a slow stop. The princeling doesn't seem to have changed in the least: not his clothes, not the sharpness of his eyes - all but the cruelty that's grown home in his mouth. 

"Mastersmith Stark."

"Prince Loki."

"Well," Loki waves a hand, "We meet again in rather reduced circumstances. Although this _does_ seem to be your work." He raps his knuckles briefly against the starglass.

"It is. Although it was not built to contain you, but a greater threat."

"Oh? I might be insulted." Loki grins sharply. "You've done very well for yourself. Your handiwork peppers the facilities of... SHIELD. Your new friends, I presume."

"I didn't make the helicarrier." 

"Yes. I'm aware of that," Loki notes, and now his smile bares his teeth a little. "Very much aware. You've quite the attention to detail, after all, that these Midgardians lack. How has exile been?"

"Passing fair. I should ask the same of you."

"I've learned very much," Loki drawls. "About life, about betrayal, about vengeance. I haven't forgotten about you, Mastersmith."

"Funny how I'm not entirely sure what I may have done against you, O Prince."

"You, my 'father, my 'mother' - you all _lied_ to me!"

"Did we?" Stark counters harshly. "What would you have had Odin do, huh? Leave you there? Leave you to die?"

"He _thought_ that I was being left to die! Was I? Perhaps he stole me!"

"Look, you sanctimonious brat," Stark snarls, " _I_ told him to leave you, all right? You think I couldn't see all the trouble that you were going to be if anyone - if _you_ \- found out what you really were? Do you think that I didn't know what the altar you were left on was _for_? You were a runt, and they offer up their poorborns to the tieflyn beasts-" 

"So you say."

"Laufey is a cunning old creature, and he doesn't forgive," Stark scowls, "Do you think he would have agreed to peace if we had murdered and stolen Jotun children at will?"

"Laufey is no more. Nor is half of Jotunheim," Loki trails his fingers along the starglass. "So you wished me dead all along."

"At the start, _fine_. I thought you were trouble that we couldn't afford. But Frigg and Odin loved you, Loki. And your uncles, and the rest of us, and hells, it caught on, all right? Frigg talked me into changing my mind after a decade or so. Who do you think crafted your armour? Your staff?" 

Loki's expression freezes briefly into complete stillness, his hand pressed against the glass. "But I would never be their favourite son."

"So this is about Thor. Really?" Stark asks tiredly. "I was hoping that your motives would be rather more original than family angst and sibling rivalry. Your family loves you, you damnable idiot, they'll forgive you eventually. Stop this madness. Do your penance. Give it time."

"Yours was a friendship that I valued, and you chose _Thor_."

"That was never going to move anywhere." 

"Was it not?"

"Thor is going to be King," Stark forces his voice steady. "Kings need to marry functional wombs." 

Loki's eyes narrow briefly, then he starts to laugh, low and malicious and harsh. "So I see. Well, this has been most _enlightening_ , Mastersmith."

"Loki, for the sake of the friendship that you once valued-"

"For the sake of _that_ , I offer you one piece of advice, 'old friend'," Loki's hand, pressed against the glass, curls into a fist. "Get off this ship while you still can."

IV.

As Stark had always thought, a gigantic flying fortress with only four engines is a resoundingly bad idea, and he ends up having to field-repair one of the engines while giving Steve instructions on how to fix the other over comms while the world goes to hell around them, but somehow things work out, especially once the giant green monster thing falls off the helicarrier.

He doesn't see Thor anyway, and it worries him, even as he helps to check an unconscious Clint over for remnants of the mind-leash and then debrief Fury on the damage. He's still talking about the hull breaches when Thor reappears, grim and tense, though his expression relaxes visibly when he sees Stark, and he nods curtly, settling into a chair in the battered war room.

Then Fury drops the news. Coulson is dead. 

Stark can't believe it. Agent Coulson has always been a fixture, first in SHIELD HQ, then in the helicarrier, seemingly forever present, forever ready with the latest report, or a cup of coffee, or a quick censure. Beside him, Pepper goes white, and Stark absently steadies her by pressing a hand to her arm: she shoots him a quick, wan smile before looking back down to the bloodied cards on the war room table.

He would have missed the look on Thor's face but for Steve clearing his throat to speak: as it is, he catches just the end of it, the look of fierce regret, of jealousy, and for a brief, irrational moment, Stark's elated. Then he remembers himself, and lets Steve run the meeting, settling into a chair. 

"Clint's fine," he offers his opinion when asked. "I've also just finalised a disruptor that can be worn on a wrist. It'll help against any further attempts by Loki to use the same trick. A little crude, but I had very short notice."

"Good work," Steve gives him a tired smile, and Stark nods at him as the meeting wraps up. The Avengers are going to run interference in New York while Stark and Natasha try to find and disable a second Tesseract-powered beacon. Pepper's obviously unhappy at being left out, but it's all hands on deck for any SHIELD agents who are remotely capable at field work, and she'll be needed elsewhere. 

"Sure you're going to be okay?" Steve asks worriedly, when they're on their way out to catch a ride down to the city. 

"I've been fighting in wars since before this city existed, kid," Stark shoots back, with as much confidence as he can manage.

"All right," Steve agrees, "I just thought that maybe you might be a bit out of practice at dodging bullets-" The rest of his words cut away as Thor gets a hand on Steve's shoulder, spinning him around. 

"Mastersmith Stark is a renowned warrior in Asgard," Thor says flatly. "You mock him with your doubt."

" _Thor!_ " Stark grips his wrist. "He gets it, Thor. Let go. Steve, head on. I'll catch up." 

Steve shoots him a patently dubious look, but when Stark gestures impatiently, he leaves, albeit shooting a glance back at them every few feet. When they're alone in the narrow corridor heading up to the top deck, Stark hisses, "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Thor's eyes are dark with a surprisingly intense anger, his jaw set hard, but his voice is even. "Did you mean what you said to Loki? Did he lie when he told me that... what we had was never to last? That you had always thought that I would marry another?"

"Do we have to discuss this _now_?"

"Now," Thor insists stubbornly. "I wish to know."

"It was never going to last," Stark makes himself say, and yelps when Thor drags him over to shove him up against the hull of the ship, hard enough to make him gasp.

"No," Thor snarls, and the kiss is sudden and startling enough that Stark freezes and gets bitten and then it's as though he's forgotten his dignity and his pride: he's kissing Thor back just as hard, just as angrily, his hands fisted in Thor's mane and cloak, riding up against the knee that Thor thrusts between his thighs. "No," Thor hisses again, when they break briefly for a harsh and furious breath before kissing again, Thor's hands cupped over his cheeks. 

"Come home with me," Thor whispers at last, when the kisses have gentled and turned dangerously soft, into the brittle silence between them both. "Come home with me, _sváss_. I have missed you." 

"Really... not the best time," Stark grits out: it's either that or give Thor everything that Thor wants.

"I do not care," Thor says fiercely. "Promise me. Come home with me after this. I cannot bear never seeing you again. I will not bear it." 

Pepper clears her throat pointedly to a side, and it's with a sense of near crushing relief that Stark gets the excuse to jerk free. "Agent Stark, Thor, take-off is in two minutes."

"Thank you, Pepper," Stark notes, and pointedly stares at Thor until Thor nods jerkily and starts walking down the corridor to the top deck. Thankfully, Pepper says nothing at all, even when they split up at the top deck, Stark heading over to where Natasha's hauling herself into a SHIELD hoverjet, and he's almost fully calm by the time he straps down. Even with the interweave, he's sweating in his gear.

"I could probably kill him," Natasha notes idly, as she toggles the jet to take off, and Stark lets out a sharp, surprised laugh.

"Thanks, Nat. But no thanks. We've got bigger problems." 

"Just saying."

V.

The best laid plans still do end up going to hell. Perched high on the Empire State Building and wishing he liked heights, Stark scrambled to disable the generator with his hastily cobbled together bag of tools, even as Natasha incapacitates Selvig, then proceeds to battle the Chitauri guards assigned to the platform, with Clint covering them from the next closest roof.

It turns out to be a very near thing, what with paranoid Midgardians deciding to fire one of their missiles at the city just to add drama, or whatever it is, and of _course_ it's Thor who elects to intercept the missile and change its course, guiding it up into the wormhole.

"Close it!" Natasha snaps, even as she ducks a heavy swing and kicks out with her heel, shattering the ankle of one of the Chitauri guards. "Close it now!" 

"I can't," Stark whispers harshly; he _can't_ , not with Thor up there, not with- 

He ends up grappling with Selvig while Natasha takes advantage of the momentary distraction to finish the circuit, and Stark ends up watching hopelessly as the wormhole closes tight, clouds curling in a funnel about it for a long moment more before dissipating. He barely pays attention to the Chitauri collapsing around them, doesn't register Natasha speaking urgently to him as he stares up into the sky, hoping for an altogether different sort of miracle that never comes.

VI.

After that, the decision to leave Midgard seems easier. He's made friends here, but his friends have cost him Thor, and in the end, two years of friendships are nothing like twenty years of learning how to love again; Stark says his goodbyes and takes his leave, hauling Loki with him as he goes.

Once Loki is safely deposited in stasis, Stark hurries to Heimdall, who is already standing on the Bridge, waiting for him. "He is not dead," Heimdall starts by noting wryly. "But he's out of range, near the Dark Rim. Sheltering in the remnants of one of the Chitauri ships."

"It's just a matter of range?" Stark demands, and sets to work: it takes two more years before he finally gets a breakthrough on a lateral understanding of slipspace, and he's there when Thor is pulled home, his hair longer, armour patchy, cloak ripped and torn, but grinning broadly when he gets over his disorientation and sees them both.

Things seem simpler this time round, when Thor kisses him again with every inch of the impatience of his relative youth, in Thor's private chambers, after the welcome-home feast, hungry as ever: they don't speak, which is probably for the best - somewhere in between their clothes getting messily discarded and Thor getting his mouth on Stark's cock, all that Stark can manage is groans. 

Thor gets him greedily all the way in, at first, fitting Stark down his throat with an ease that Stark would call practiced if he didn't know better; big hands had only the hint of a tremble against Stark's spread inner thighs and the moment that Thor starts to bob his head - _Gods_ \- it's been too long. "Please," Stark gasps, then "Gods," and " _Thor_ ," and Thor growls, deep and rasping, and at the vibration and the lightest scrape of teeth he's already lost, crying out and tugging at Thor's mane as Thor holds him down and just _takes_ it all.

"Thor," Stark murmurs, as Thor grins up at him when softening flesh pops free from his mouth, red-lipped and lazy as he nips Stark high up on his inner thigh, then lower, then lower yet to his knee, then a kiss over his kneecap, and Stark squirms and moans as Thor takes his time to work him over, all light, teasing bites and licks. He has marks reddening all over by the time Thor seems satisfied, hauled up on the bed and taking Stark's mouth, slower this time yet far more possessive, his arousal pressed hard against Stark's hip.

"Marry me tomorrow," Thor growls against his neck when he has Stark pressed into the bed on his chest, Thor's big hands slick with oil and slowly working Stark open, gentle and at odds with the taut tension in his voice. "Will that convince you?"

"What?" Stark blinks, then gasps, "Hey," and " _Thor_ ," and "Hells, _hells_ , Gods," as fingers press knuckle-deep and curl. "Absolutely _not_."

Thor hums and nips at his neck and drags his fingers thickly against him, stroking against the core of him, the sweet spot, and Stark jerks with a low whine and digs his fingers into the sheets. "I have a lot of cousins. Someone else can be King after me." He bites down, almost hard enough for Stark to whimper. "Mother approves."

"Gods, don't, just, more," is all the coherency that Stark can manage until Thor gets with the program and replaces his fingers with something better, sinking deep with thrust that makes his spine curl and a shout claw its way free from Stark's throat that breaks into a scream when Thor gets his hand under him, splaying his fingers possessively over the ark scale, energy dancing to his whim.

Motor control and dignity quickly take a back seat, but thankfully for his fraying sanity and patience Thor is just as starved for this as Stark is; it's as though twenty years has rewound back to the start and this is the beginning again, grinding against each other and growing brutal, Thor's teeth in his shoulder and his big hands laced over Stark's, holding him down and pinned until they're both sated.

" _Not_ tomorrow," Stark finally has the brain matter to say, when curled and starting to drowse.

"But not never?"

"Let me talk to Frigg."

"I do not care," Thor says fiercely, and there's that familiar intensity in his eyes again. "I do not care." 

" _I_ do," Stark says firmly, if hoarsely, "I've known your mother nearly all my life, and I do still value her friendship, as much as it's caused me a lifetime's worth of trouble." He shudders. It's a conversation that he's put off for too long as it is. "Gods, you're so _young_."

Thor laughs, even as he noses up to kiss the silver that's long been creeping into Stark's sideburns, and again he whispers, low and intense, "I do not care."

VII.

"I suppose SHIELD can borrow Thor now and then for the Avengers Initiative while I'm here," Stark tells Pepper, while he's helping to catalogue Chitauri tech. It's not as advanced as Asgardian make, but some of it is quite novel, particularly the bio-organic steel.

"I'm surprised that you came back at all," Pepper tells him, perched on a chair comfortably out of his way and working on a laptop. "So was the Director."

"I think I have more work to do on Midgard than in Asgard," Stark confesses. "Your planet's a fucking mess."

Pepper scowls briefly at the invective. "I see that Director Fury's been a greater influence on you than I thought. Didn't His Royal Highness object?"

"Not particularly. His father's out of the Odinsleep; all of his current duties are administrative." Stark finishes disassembling the Chitauri pulse stunner into component parts, and pauses as Jane Foster walks into the lab, shooting him a tense look and a quick nod before heading briskly away to the far corner, where Selvig is absorbed in reading Tesseract energy printouts. 

"Still think that you shouldn't have talked to her," Pepper murmurs.

"Why not? She's intelligent, nice, and as much of a victim of Thor's young and princely ego as anyone else." Stark says dismissively. "Maybe we're not going to be friends, but at least neither of us want to kill the other one any more. Besides," he adds, as he puts the parts into carefully labelled boxes, "She's young enough by your years to get over it."

"Get over loving and losing the Crown Prince of several planets?" Pepper asks dryly. 

Stark rolls his eyes briefly. "She met Thor for what, a few days? She's not in love." He takes another pulse stunner out from the inert crate. "Infatuated, maybe. It takes time to know love." 

"For immortals, maybe," Pepper allows, though she grins as she says it, and eventually, when Selvig calls Stark a little nervously over to discuss an energy anomaly, Foster's natural curiosity and love of her vocation wins him a little warmth. It's a start. 

When he returns to the Triskelion later in the night, Stark is tired enough that he finds himself in the balcony that he normally sits on, when the night is clear, and is a little unsurprised to find Thor already there, grinning broadly as he draws Stark into an embrace.

"Had fun today?"

"Doombots are a challenge," Thor agrees, taking a quick kiss, then a deeper one, until they're pressed flush together, entwined.

"I used to watch the stars here," Stark murmurs, when they've breath between them. "Watching for home." 

"I used to sit on the shattered lip of the Bifrost," Thor whispers, hot against his ear and low, "Even when Heimdall was elsewhere. It felt like the times we would sit at the Sundered Falls, watching the skyroads without speaking. Then it was not so bad, the wait." 

"Then it was not so bad," Stark echoes, blinking; if Thor had watched and waited then, with the weight of Yggdrasil between them, what did custom matter now, or propriety or pride? He presses his mouth high up against Thor's throat, feels Thor chuckle softly against him, deep and warm and rich; for now, this is his world, his all, and he has come home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
